There might not be water in hell, but there sure is a crap load of water here on earth, 326,000,000,000,000,000,000 gallons to be exact. That’s 326 million trillion in case you didn’t know. Seventy percent of mother earth is covered with the stuff, but did you know only one percent of that water is drinkable. Suddenly, the abundance of water doesn’t seem so, well, abundant.
Today is a pretty epic day. It’s Blog Action Day. What is this day I speak of? Blog Action Day is an annual event held every October 15 that unites the world’s bloggers in posting about the same issue on the same day with the aim of sparking a global discussion and driving collective action. This year’s topic is water.
Did you know there are over a billion people on earth that don’t have access to clean, safe drinking water? That’s freaking crazy if you ask me! Especially when I can go walk in to my bathroom and have an endless supply of potable water. I guess sometimes we forget how good we really have it.
I know I’m guilty of taking long showers and buying bottled water. (In my defense, San Diego tap water does taste like hot garbage so there is no way I’m drinking straight from the source). To try and decrease my environmental foot print, Wife Ninja and I went ahead and bought ourselves a Brita filter for the fridge. The water tastes exponentially better and now we should get off without having to buy bottled water as frequently which in turn saves us money! And for the shower side of things, I’m going to only shower as long as it takes me to get clean, not a second longer. Or even better, I’ll convince Wife Ninja to give me sponge baths!!!
If you are feeling generous, like just a few dollars generous, you can head over to one of my friends’ Charity Water websites and make a small donation. They are trying to raise $5,000 by next week. They already have $3,044 raised which is pretty dang sexylicious if you ask me, but are really hoping to meet their goal. This would be especially sweet because they don’t know I’m posting their water link on the blog. How cool would it be to surprise them with a couple hundred dollars straight from PDITF readers!? And yes, 100% of your donation goes directly to funding water projects in developing nations, this ain’t no charity scam 🙂
If you don’t have the means to donate that’s okay too. At least you are a little more educated and can move forward making positive choices.
What is your preferred method of water consumption? Bottled, tap, purified? Is the water in your city as disgusting as San Diego’s? Why do long/hot showers feel so good, when they are soooo bad? Do you have any random water facts for me?
p.s. Here’s the video about Charity Water….
Update (8:20am): So far we have over $400 raised for my friends’ fund and it’s only 8am! Booya! Let’s keep on blessing them! They will be soooo excited.
When Chuck Norris jumps in water, Chuck Norris doesn’t get wet, the water gets Chuck Norrised.
We use a brita filter on our tap as well as the brita jug. So we run the water from our sink through the brita filter in tap into the brita jug. We call it double filtered water. Our water is metallic and this makes it tastes refreshingly awesome. Plus, we store the water in the fridge so it is really cold. We used to buy tons of bottled water because of our water taste- now we rarely, if ever do.
we keep our water in the fridge, tastes just fine!
Water is Life
Tap water in Long Island, NY, tastes pretty good. New York City water is even better. I picked up, however, the habit of drinking carbonated water from my travels in Europe, where in Italy (for instance), you’re expected to buy your water with meals and you’re asked: “con gaz o senza gaz?” So although I cook with tap water, I like to drink Perrier here, sometimes mixed with tart fruit juice like cranberry or pomegranate.
The worst-tasting local water I have ever tried was on a business trip to Florence, Arizona, many years ago. Metallic and horrid-tasting.
Charity Water organization is sweet, because they go to countries with no water, and build a well. They teach locals how to maintain that well, and keep the fresh water flowing. That is a great place to give to. Thanks Ninja.
The hubs and I have been living in South Lake Tahoe for a few years, and, not to brag too much, but our water is delicious. Straight from the tap for us. And, for your water fact of the day- SLT’s gray water is cleaner than LA’s drinking water. Pretty gross when you think about it. When I went to college near LA we stuck with the brita in the fridge. And it was still pretty nasty tasting.
Now that we’re moving back to the Bay Area, I still drink from the tap. Doesn’t really bother me.
The best was when we were working at a Christian camp in the mountains outside Tahoe- well water that came out of the tap at 40 degrees. It was better than fridge chilled bottled water.
We love our bottled water!
I made my donation, come on PDITF fans let’s help them reach their goal!
We live in the Vancouver, Canada area and have absolutely delicious tap water. We keep a jug in the fridge to stay cold but no filter necessary. The crazy thing is that people here still buy tons of bottled water and water filters – advertising is a powerful thing. Local governments are working hard to ban bottled water in schools and public places and educate people on the goodness of our tap water. All that unnecessary plastic in the landfills is a terrible thing.
Even with our super abundance of water, we still have watering restrictions in the summer but I don’t think water meters will ever happen. I was shocked when I found out some people pay for the amount of water they consumer but I guess it makes sense in those areas.
Great call on the Charity Water plug Ninja. Chuck Norris would be proud.
Thanks Peter and Debt Ninja! As Peter said, PDITF (Punch Dirtywater in the Face). Love it!
NY tap water!
Water from the fridge filter with crushed ice…heaven! Just found out my hubby hates it when I crunch on the ice, too bad for him;)
BTW-thanks to your 403 post a couple weeks ago, I just met with our Roth guy and got my 2 CA account rolled over (ok, more like started to roll over, there is a bit of paperwork involved). And opened 529s for the kiddos. Thanks for blogging about your addiction to finances and planning…it has helped me get my stuff in gear too!
Trina
I love this blog post! I’m a tap drinker myself, but last year my mom and I bought a case of wine:water from the CNN hero and gave bottles out for our Christmas gifts. They were pretty sweet and sparked a lot of holiday discussions!
Causes like this are noble, but ultimately we humans will not reach goals like “clean, plentiful water for all” without addressing the elephant in the room: our endlessly growing population.
You say there are over a billion people in the world without access to clean, safe water. Well, just over 200 years ago there weren’t even 1 billion people on the entire planet. Now we are inching toward a world population of SEVEN billion. It doesn’t take a mathematician to realize that we each have 1/7th the amount of water available to each of us when compared with our ancestors of two centuries ago.
Drilling new wells strains the steadily declining groundwater supply and is not a viable long-term solution. The real issue is that expanding populations are drawing down water supplies more rapidly than they naturally regenerate. Displaced people are also attempting to survive in areas that (due to their aridity) are not appropriate for permanent human settlement.
My wife and I are doing our part by not adding any more offspring to the endless sea of humanity. If we ever have children (which is questionable), we will adopt.
Interesting because I remember reading that the earth has enough food and water for some crazy high number like 60billion people. Not saying I agree with that, but I don’t know if overpopulation is the problem as much as our abuse of natural resources. I think that’s where the real problem is. Especially in countries like ours. Water bottles anyone? Do you know how many barrels of oil are imported annually just for the sake of making plastic bottles? Over 17 million. We just use everything up without thinking about future impact.
We have a Brita pitcher we keep in the fridge. To be honest, we don’t change the filter as often as we’re supposed to…it’s possible we’re making our water worse with it. But I like my water cold, so that’s what I get.
My friends fill a glass carafe with tap water and put that in the fridge…it looks so classy!
We have a reverse osmosis water filter because my husband is a water snob, but I am too impatient to wait for the slow stream of water to fill up my cup. I use tap water all the way, unless I’m out and about and don’t have access to a water fountain and forgot to bring along a water bottle filled with tap water.
I’m glad to have found your site. Keep up the good work!
Our water here in Montana does not taste too bad out of the tap. But we run it through a filter and refrigerate it before drinking it.
Our neighbor ripped out all his lawn two years ago and replaced it with lots of native grasses and plants and shrubs that don’t require much water. They need a LOT less water than a lawn requires. Plus no mowing. It looked a little pathetic until this year. It looks fabulous now and he did not have to water it even one time this summer. (just enough rain here and there to keep it happy). So now we are getting ready to do the same thing.
Hubby and I decided we were spending sooo much money on bottled water that we bought a cooler (under $100), and the 18 gal. jugs which we can refill for $3.00. I suggested the Brita; hubby vetoed, so the water cooler was our compromise.